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594
The Unknown Pilgrims
her, requesting her to remain in order to celebrate with them, in several day's time, the svarga-jayanti, the anniversary of the Great Departure, of a much-venerated ācārya. Here was an event rare indeed, as her biographer remarks: a Tapāgaccha ācārya asking a Kharataragaccha sådhvi to delay her vihāra for a celebration in common! The day of the jayanti, the acārya requested Sadhvi Vicakṣaṇa to precede him in addressing the assembly. She did so in all simplicity. She spoke of unity, of meeting one another, and gave this example: "Look at the water-melon; from the outside it appears to be divided into slices, but once the skin is removed, one round ball only remains, without divisions..., in the same way, regarded from the outside, we are of different gacchas: Tapă , Kharatara and others, but on the inside are we not all the spiritual descendants of Mahāvira? If, in meeting thus together, we do not renounce the spirit of division, our meeting has no meaning." The ācārya, very happy and touched at heart, invited the gathering to respond favourably to the appeal launched by Sādhvi Vicakşana.
It was on her initiative, during her stay at Ratalāma in Räjasthana that the various religious communities celebrated together Krsnajanma-utsava, the anniversary of the Birth of Krsna, a national festival. The civil authorities undertook the organisation of this festival on a grand scale. A gathering of about seven thousand persons listened with joy and evident interest to the various speeches. Sadhvi Vicakṣaṇa spoke last. With an exquisite mastery of her subject, the Bhagavad Gitā, of which she quoted number of verses from memory, she expounded faithfully the message of Krşna, pointing out its similarities to that of Mahāvira and showing that the spiritual path of the Vaisnavites and that of the Jainas contain certain essential elements in common. Later on, at Amaravati on the occasion of the celebration of this same festival, she again joined the Vaişnavites 43
In Gujarāta, where the Tapāgacchas are in the majority, the atmosphere is far from favourable towards the giving of pravacanas by sādhvis in public; Sādhvi Vicakṣaṇa, without affronting anyone, gave
43 The Jainas, as is known, have adopted sri Krşņa and Sri Rāma; they have 'Jainified' them and made them into mahāpurușas, heroes of their own tradition. Sādhvi Vicaksana did not on this occasion speak in terms of this transposition, but took her inspiration solely from the Bhagavad Gitā.
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